Team:Moscow
About our project
As viruses mutate quickly, different genotypes among one species can develop. For some viral diseases, genotype detection is crucial for successful treatment, and hepatitis C is one of them. Nobel Prize 2020 was awarded for the fight against hepatitis С, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Hepatitis C is caused by hepatitis C virus (HCV) that has at least six different genotypes. Recombinant variant RF2k/1b is common in Russia, but it is often mistaken for genotype 1 that leads to incorrect treatment. However, a lot of infected people in Russia do not know their HCV genotype because of expensive testing or the impossibility to perform tests in peripheral regions.
So, we are aiming to develop a fast, specific and easy-to-use portable Cas-based device “HaploSense” to solve this problem. In theory, HaploSense can be optimized for genotype detection of any RNA viruses, including HIV or Sars-CoV-2, and may become a universal detection platform.
It's a Gold Medal for Team Moscow this year!
And it is first Gold Medal for a Russian team since 2007!
We are grateful to everyone who supported us throughout the journey, and we thank the iGEM community for inspiring us every day.
We hope to continue working on our project and to come up with new ideas next year.
Stay tuned!
